This is a blog about my learning knowledge to make pizza. I have been helped by many people on my journey

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There are so many variables that go into making a PIZZA. The hydration of the dough, flour, yeast and many more.. Amounts of any kind of yeast in a pizza can make a big difference. Most recipes posted on the web, use too much yeast in their recipes. What I have found out so far, is either bulk fermenting the dough or cold fermenting the dough will give a better flavor in the crust. I am still experimenting to find different flavors in the crust of pies. In my opinion pizza is all about the best flavor you can achieve in a crust. I still am on the journey about flavors in the crust. Even differences in temperatures in you home or times of the year can influence how much yeast to use. If you want a pizza to develop flavors in the crust, there are many ways to go about achieving this.

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Preferment for Lehmann Dough Pizzas

Crust of Pizza

Rim of Preferment Lehmann Formula

Adventure in Pizza Making

There are many ways to go about trying to make any kind of pizzas you want to create. PIZZA making is fun and also you get to eat your finished product. I learned to make all my pizza on http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php
If you look on pizzamaking.com you can see all the beautiful creations of pizzas members make on this site. Members and moderators help members and guests achieve almost any kind of pizzas they want to create. Since joining this site, my pizza making skills have gone from non-existent to something much better. I invite you to take a look at this site.

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Sicilian Pizza

Sicilian Pizza with Preferment for Lehmann Dough

Thursday, September 20, 2012

The four day old preferment Lehmann dough worked out okay, but I think I added too much yeast to the final dough, or either my final dough temperature was too high. There was a bubble starting to form in the top of the dough ball before it was left to warm-up. The dough ball was then left to warm-up for 2 hrs at room temperatures. The dough ball was very easy to open.

The taste of the crust was very good from the 4 day cold ferment, but I didn’t think there was enough rim crust browning and there was a little to much bottom rim crust charring. The rim crust was moist. The bottom rim crust charring wasn’t noticeable when tasting the pizza, but I don’t like that much edge rim crust browning. Also the pizza wanted to bubble a little in the middle of the pizza during the bake. I don’t know why that was since the dough ball was warm-up enough. I also didn’t think the rim was brown enough in some places, even though I did add some sugar to the formulation.

I still am mystified why garlic Alfredo pizza are different than my regular topping pizzas even using the same dough. To me, even the taste of the crust is better and there is more oven spring. That is also strange. I would like all my pizzas to look something like this. The bottom crust bakes about the same.

Steve took me on a tour of where he lived when he lived in Philly, the home he live in when he was born and other homes his family live in and also the one home Steve and his wife owned in the Philly area. Steve told me what it was like to live in those areas. I have never been to some of the places Steve took me. It was very interesting to see the new places.

This was our second stop on the pizza tour after Pizza Brain.

These are some pictures of Marchiano’s Bakery and the “tomato pie”.

I haven’t eaten many “tomato pies” in my life, but find them interesting. Bob1 had brought me one “tomato pie” to market a little while ago and that “tomato pie” had a lot sweeter sauce.

I think “tomato pies” are mostly popular around the Philly area, but they do sell “tomato pies” in other areas of the US. I do like “tomato pies”, but think I like other types of pizzas better. Really all “tomato pies” taste like are bread, sauce and Parmesan cheese, at least in my opinion. The sauce on this “tomato pie” was very good.

Frank Pica Sr. started making pizza in 1941. I like this saying from the first link: “If you look closely, you can see that small pizzas were $.75 and large pizzas were $1.00. (Those were the days.) The stairwell led upstairs to a “more formal dining room”, where men had to be accompanied by ladies in order to eat upstairs; house rules and no exceptions were made.”

Lol, the men had to be accompanied by the ladies in order to eat upstairs.

This was a pizza Steve enjoyed in the past. He never really watched a lot how they made them years ago and doesn’t even remember if they used a deck oven or not before, but does remember enjoying Pica’s pizzas. Steve hadn’t had a Pica’s pizza in a lot of years either.

This sure was a really different pizza. It is called a “square pizza”. I sure don’t know how they were made years ago, but found it very interesting watching how the dough is rolled out in a sheeter, then also automatically cut in the same machine. The dough is then place in a steel pan and the cheese is automatically applied by another piece of interesting machinery. I saw so many pies going into and out of those pieces of machinery and really wondered what was going to happen with all those pies. I sure didn’t see many of them getting baked in the conveyor oven.

This pizza was really different and really good. I was glad Steve took me to Pica’s pizza. I purchased this pie. Note the bottom lining in the box. I guess that is used so the crust doesn’t get soggy. This pizza was served piping hot.

This was one kind of Greek style pizza Steve remembered from long ago, but Steve said it wasn’t his favorite. He told me he didn’t think the cheese and sauce were applied to the edges like Greek Styles here on the forum, but we would wait and see when we got there. Drexel Hill Style Pizza is owned by Greeks and first opened in 1968.

The pizzas were already sitting in the steel pan with sauce and cheeses already applied. Steve was right that the sauce and cheese weren’t applied to the edges like here on the forum.

Steve and I were getting perturbed that it was taking so long to bake the pizza. We both though that the pizza would be too dry from the long bake. We didn’t time the bake, but it was long for a 10” pizza. It can be seen in the picture of the ovens (to the left of the ovens), the stack of pizzas pile up waiting to be baked. I wonder how the dough doesn’t proof too much sitting at room temperatures.

I think Steve and I could taste the cheddar in the cheeses, and this pie was good, but would have been a lot better if it wasn’t baked as long. The young gal tending to the pizzas and oven sure didn’t seem like she checked them very often and seemed to just go back in the room.

Steve remembered that the building that Drexel Hill Style Pizza is in was a firehouse at one time. There were pictures on the wall of the firehouse.

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About Me

I am searching how to make different kinds of pizza, using different amounts of water, flour, different kinds of yeasts (wild and commercial) and finding what I can about using ingredients in making pizzas.
I am just an everyday person in this journey. I have friends and members on www.pizzamaking.com that help me on this journey. :)